First, there is a trend to see the primary action of the Church of the Nazarene as local. Two persons rejected the General Superintendency -- one after election; one right before election. These two rejections of general church leadership came out of deeper commitments to local missions of each person for the church. The General Superintendency is seen as an administrative position "out of touch" of where the real work is going on, rather than a means of guarding the church's catholicity in mission. The travel, stress, and strain of the job, and its minimal actual authority make the General Superintendency an unattractive position. Additionally, any work done must be done as a council, not as an individual. Thus the ability to conduct any particular action is only moral and the power of appointment. Because various congregations and departments have come to be seens as "franchises" to be motivated by the corporate board, one can live with less hassles and pursue one's own mission as members of the franchises. In other words, the "growth" ideology put forth by the past Board of General Superintendents has undercut the importance of the office itself.

Second, the Church of the Nazarene has become sufficiently large that such elections are very difficult to implement. No one knows who really would be a good General Superintendent -- though pretty good ideas exist concerning who wouldn't serve well in the office. Although non-American members outnumber American members, the leaders in these areas are not networked geographically, linguistically, and culturally as are the United States members, particularly the members in the "red states". Thus, I believe that the assembly wanted to elect a non-American to the office, but were unable once the Brazilian pastor withdrew his name. No one knew anyone else. The numbers of ballots became very large and the deadline of the Assembly, flights home, etc, became very near. The Assembly's largest voting block returned to what they knew and whom they knew and were most like themselves -- white, middlewestern, heavy American religious-right leanings seeking to establish a white, Protestant Christendom model in the United States based upon "personal conversions" and "powerful experiences of the Spirit". By electing a woman they could believe that they had widened the church's diversity (and in a very limited sense, they are right), but not really face the problem of the limited perspective of the general leadership. By electing J. K. Warrick, they elected the second pastor from the same church -- Olathe College Church of the Nazarene -- that has been at the center of Nazarene identification with the religious right in the past 40 years. Warrick himself actively worked for an amendment to the Kansas Constitution about same-sex marriages, often quoted in papers with inflammatory speech about homosexuality that do not represent the more nuanced position of the church.

It is my impression, then, that the General Assembly elected two of the most revivalistic, non-catholic, religious right members of the church, deeply embedded in the American evangelical political project of an autonomous, privately moral Christian individual who makes "Christian choices" and a more generic public morality to be implemented by the nation-state in return for support of the agenda of that nation-state. What this means for the internationalization of the Church of the Nazarene is not promising. Most likely it means that we will continue to export "personal conversion experiences" via the Jesus film, no catechesis, and control of funding, decisions, and economics by an American-based business pragmaticism.

One final comment. It is interesting to compare the recent papal elections with these elections. Neither Warrick nor Gunter has a Masters degree from a Nazarene institution. Gunter's masters is in education, not theology. Neither one has any deep engagement with the Christian tradition, except in the very limited, culturally accomodated form that they have experienced within their evangelical subculture. Obviously, wisdom is not sought from the life of the church through the ages in the Church of the Nazarene, but in power of personality and ability to advocate an agenda from the position of power. One the other hand, Benedict XVI is a very learned man, and while conservative, conservative from within the Christian tradition, not conservative from within the American tradition. Thus, when Benedict speaks, he speaks from within a tradition that he can acknowledge, own, and re-iterate; the tradition that forms the leadership in the Church of the Nazarene is unacknowledged, supposedly subjective and "biblical", but in actuality, confined to a very tenuous locality of time and culture. In other words, the leadership reflects the same lack of catholicity that made the other two persons turn down the position, not accept it.

Unless a wider Christian perspective is soon formed in the leadership of the Church of the Nazarene, both geographically and throughout time, past and future, this ruled order will fragment into national bodies with basic congregational decisions.

Tomorrow I'll try and add some comments on the legislative decisions made by the assembly.